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Tdf 2015

tkuder007

tkuder007

VUSports.com Addict
Gold Member
Sep 5, 2005
5,255
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Seattle
Wit the tour kicking off today, it's time to establish the annual tdf thread w 3-4 talking tour, and the rest posting the same 'how do you watch this shit' lines over and over.

My surface level thoughts:
gc field looks good at the top this yr. 4 real contenders as far as I can see. Hope they all stay healthy and contador or nibali wins an epic one, but I suspect ac is a bit past his prime for these younger pups. Want to see if quintana can look as good as he did at points in 2013 for the whole thing. With the shit show that was sky last year, I'm actually looking forward to a strong froome this yr, though I don't want to see him end up in yellow for much of the tour. That team is lame w the lead. Nibali repeat would be interesting. Mainly want to see a competitive tour down the stretch

Would love top 5 finish for teejay and top 10 for talansky, but have a feeling both bust

Green jersey will likely be a runaway for sagan again, but he won't win many stages. Thing to watch for me will be if kittel can continue to look unbeatable like the Cavendish of 4-5 years ago or if greipel and Cavendish can push him a bit. Maybe even sagan. I'd like to see sagan get 3-4 stages - like his style

Getting goofy with the cobbles again, hoping for no injury to any real guys. Last year was a disaster w injury

Jmerc, 2 decks etc - thoughts?
 
hint.......

IndegoBikeShare_M.Fischetti01-900vp.jpg
 
Are the mountain stages in middle of spectrum or to the extreme end? I always liked watching the leaders go at each other on l'alpe de huez (sp?). How old is contador? Seems very suspicious to me that he is still at top of the sport.
 
Good start today for Tejay. Not to mention, Dennis is a teammate, which should really help in the TTT.
 
Wow........looks like NASCAR out there today......watching live......and two tremendous pile ups, bike and riders flying all over the place. Think they are stopping the race, but, some riders aren't stopping.....Now just heard them say they are "neutralizing " the event.....whatever that means. Several guys taken away in ambulances.....one guy is one of the favorites but didn't catch his name.
 
The stated reason for stopping the race is that so many of the doctors were attending to fallen riders that if the main peloton crashed then, there would be no doctors left. The real reason is they didn't want there to be too big a gap opened up after this stage
 
Very real chance we could have an American in yellow headed into the rest day. Tejay needs to just keep contact with Froome.
 
Big day tomorrow for tejay

I know bmc's team is built for this but assume froome's is too. At an 11-13 second deficit, is bmc considered likely to outperform sky enough to get tejay in 1st?
 
tkuder007 said:
Big day tomorrow for tejay

I know bmc's team is built for this but assume froome's is too. At an 11-13 second deficit, is bmc considered likely to outperform sky enough to get tejay in 1st?
Click to expand...
BMC came up short. I think this was Tejay's chance, and getting ahead of Froome is going to be too tall of an order.

The st. ic(PA) Perfect Season award for a moral victory goes to Movistar for dragging Quintana to the line as the leaders in the clubhouse. I thought they were going to have to just limit his losses. I didn't think they'd be contending for the stage.
 
spg109876ers said:
I get it and I don't (hit-and-a-miss?).

Yellow is nice, but what's the point if it's only temporary? Good for some schlub who will never contend in the GC, but isn't this year partly about whether TJvG will mature into a "real" threat eventually? He seemed pretty fired up about taking the stage. I think I'd rather have a stage win than "fake" day in yellow.

How pathetic is it when France gets all worked up because some mediocre frenchy is wearing yellow on Bastille Day? It's their race and that's all they have to look forward to?
Click to expand...
I don't think Tejay is "some schlub." Froome sees him as a threat. He's obviously a bigger threat than Nibali.

Which medicore Frenchy are you talking about? Gallopin is 2 minutes behind, and isn't going to get that back on Monday.
 
After last year I thought Pinot was the real deal. If he hadn't crashed/got caught up in crashes, he might have had a shot of being a decent frenchy in yellow on the 14th.
 
i think putting on yellow means a lot to these guys - look at tony martin this year. of course you;d love to ride into paris with the yellow jersey more than having it for a couple first week stages, but we're talking about a guy who has never sniffed it, not a guy like contador or froome. also cool, im sure, for the non GC guys to get to put it on in wk 1. would like to see sagan get that done one of these years. feels inevitable.

feel bad for guys like pinot on team time trial stages (or nibali, to a lesser degree). it would be frustrating if you were a pretty decent GC guy that needs everything to go your way to get a top 5 finish, but be stuck on a shitty team that's going to drop a couple minutes on a ttt regardless of how you do. also probably frustrating for froome and co who would have certainly won that stage if their fifth dude hadnt cracked about 45 seconds before the line.

glad to see quintana, tejay, nibali, and contador still in it, though nibali has some work to do.
 
The fact that Roche broke down on the final climb shows just how strong the top five guys from BMC were. They went a good portion of the race with only five riders while Sky had a group of six in the final 2 km. Would be interesting to know if the lack of a sixth rider for such a good portion of the race cost BMC some time.
 
yeah, liggett and sherman were getting a little antsy every time BMC dropped a guy, but they managed down the stretch. Helps that they have something like 4 world champions in the time trial on their team.

sky had 8 guys left probably around the 5k point and was looking very strong before falling a bit at the end. wish today was a mtn stage, because it looked like froome was working harder yesterday than he was probably supposed to. certainly harder than tejay was.

course profile for tuesday is insane. lot of time to be had/lost on the uncategorized climb that ends it. long and steep.
 
Having Contador and Quintana each over a minute back should make the mountains interesting.
 
kind of. i'd prefer it was froome that was trailing at this point though, in the name of drama. with him ahead, i foresee a tour where he just catches on to every attack, maybe launches one of two of his own, adds to his lead in the time trial (assuming there's an individual in wk3, but havent verified), and has a pretty drama-free ride into paris.

this is all based on him looking so far like he did 2 years ago, when he was completely untouchable. not sure contador or nibali can overcome a minute or two so far plus the inevitable 30+ seconds they lose in another time trial.

if froome doesnt stumble at all, i'd almost give tejay the best chance of taking him at some point given his ability in the time trial, but i still have a hard time believing that tejay can get all the way through without a bad mtn stage. i really hope he can, just very cautious in my optimism
 
i realize a team time trial doesn't predict success in a mountain stage, but does bmc have the quality depth to keep tejay close enough to have a legit shot to beat Froome?
 
Damiano Caruso, Samuel Sanchez, and Rohan Dennis are all strong riders. Sanchez and Caruso both recent top ten guys in grand tours and Dennis a possible future GC guy.
 
There are no more time trials. It's all climbing. It's going to be interesting to see who's up to the challenge.
 
Essentially saying that today's performance doesn't happen without doping.
 
Should have clarified that. Ross Tucker is an exercise physiology professor in South Africa. He was a media go-to on the subject of Oscar Pistorius' fake legs giving him an advantage.
 
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